The Language of Power

by Rosemary Kirstein

  From her left: noise, laughter, some argument; the creak of benches shifting; the thunk of mugs on tabletops; the clink of coins. To her right: a cool, thick quiet, populated only by echoes. Rowan remained, motionless, suddenly weary to the core, gazing at nothing at all.

  And it seemed to her now that the world had slowed, somehow: voices were distant, and the walls of the room dim, half-seen, mere outline and shadow . . .

  Something waved for her attention: she brought her gaze back with difficulty, and found Beck signaling with a cupped hand to his lips, and a questioning expression.

  He seemed unreal; she found she could not reply. Beck hesitated, studying her face, then he carried his rag and the empty mug into the kitchen. Rowan returned to staring at emptiness.

  Eventually she pulled her logbook from her satchel, opened it, and removed Ona’s drawings.

  On the page before her, the vague shape, the empty face, the slashed line of the artist’s panicked flight.

  Despite its emptiness, Rowan thought: Slado, exactly as I know him. All guess, blankness, and fear. She sat gazing for a long time.

  Somewhat later, a presence at her side. Rowan was several moments recognizing Beck.

  He placed something on the table before her, not wine, not ale—

  A delicate tea cup and saucer, decorated with tiny purple irises; an odd, fat, round, yellow tea pot; and a scent, warm and welcoming, bright with mint, rich with honey.

  Rowan breathed in deeply, and felt a sudden sweet rush of gratitude. She grinned up at Beck, and said, almost inaudibly: “Perfect.”

  He tilted his head, eyes half closed, basking in her approval, then gracefully eased himself away again.

  Rowan poured, tasted, sighed.

  A latecomer entered the tavern, made for the fireplace, discovered the sleeping drunkard, and instead chose a long table to the fire’s right, in the empty side of the room. He studied the crowd around the caravan captain, glanced in Rowan’s direction, glanced away again.

  She recognized his face from her catalog of people outside the pawnshop. The possible third watcher.

  Bel entered by the street door and scanned the room, ostentatiously searching for someone, and equally ostentatiously discovering him: Dan. They greeted each other with glee, and Bel settled cozily into his lap, allowing one quick glance to tell Rowan that she had sighted her in the dim corner.

  Two serving girls and Beck brought three more pitchers of ale to the caravan crowd. Young Beck noticed the lone man at the long table by the fire, and nudged one of the girls, who hurried to take the man’s order.

  Rowan turned back to the sketches, covered the shadow of her enemy with the second drawing.

  There the apprentice sat, much as Rowan sat, both hands around a tea cup, exactly as if he occupied another table in this very room.

  It occurred to Rowan that this might actually have been the case—and that she and he were separated not by space, but by time.

  She wondered if this was what magic felt like. The young man with his tea cup could not see her, but she saw him, and more: she, like some tinker fortune-teller, knew his future.

  So young.

  He was watching something off to his right. Feeling herself to be facing him, Rowan involuntarily looked to her own left—

  —and observed the entrance of the stocky, gray-haired woman, overdressed in a heavy green cloak that might or might not conceal any number of weapons. The woman swept the room with a quick gaze, completely failed to notice Rowan, and approached, stepping sideways, her attention on the caravan crowd, only turning back when she was a mere five feet from the table.

  She startled immensely at finding Rowan occupying her own usual seat. The steerswoman sat regarding her expressionlessly.

  The woman was a moment finding words. “Hai, what a shock! Sorry I am, lady, not seeing you there, sitting so quiet like that.” She laughed, one hand on her chest as if quieting a fluttering heart; it was a very good performance. “I’ll just be leaving, no need to disturb you. You want your peace, I can see it.” And she glanced about the room, her gaze pausing almost imperceptibly on the lone man at the long table, then settling on the fireplace. She sidled away around the smaller tables and sat in a chair next to the snoring drunkard.

  A very distinctive accent: The Crags, held by Abremio. Among those wizards known to the common folk, Abremio was considered the most powerful.

  Across the room, Bel laughed, overloud. Rowan looked, and Bel’s eyes caught hers briefly, as behind Dan’s back, shielded from onlookers, the Outskirter flashed three fingers.

  But the steerswoman already knew: the solitary man, the stocky woman, and the beggar, now certainly waiting outside. All three watchers, all close by.

  Time to go. For safety’s sake, she must abandon this mission.

  But she was so close.

  The steerswoman turned back to the drawings, pulled the first sheet from behind the other. And it seemed different to her now, no longer fraught with dark meaning. Merely lines on a page, drawn by a girl, decades ago. Merely a quick attempt at capture, failed.

  The steerswoman needed more information.

  And there was more than one way to get it.

  Rowan replaced the pages into her logbook, returned the logbook to its satchel, slung it over her shoulder. She checked to see that the lone man and the gray-haired woman were not currently looking at her, then turned to watch Bel.

  When the Outskirter glanced in her direction, she noticed Rowan’s attention.

  When Bel looked back a moment later, Rowan was still regarding her, steadily.

  When Bel managed to look again, she gazed longer. As she watched, Rowan glanced: at the woman by the fireplace, the man alone at his table, and at the door. Then Rowan waited.

  Bel knew the steerswoman very well indeed. The Outskirter’s eyes acquired a brief, hard glitter, her mouth a quick, small smile. Her chin lifted once, almost imperceptibly, in Rowan’s direction; then she turned her attentions back to Dan.

  Slowly, Rowan drained her tea cup, rose, swung on her cloak, picked up her cane, crossed the room, and left through the front door.

  She paused under the carved dolphin. Against a wall, under the ledge of the tall windows of the formal parlor, the beggar lay curled up, apparently fast asleep. Only his smell distinguished him from a pile of rags.

  Ruffo kept lamps lit through the night, all around his inn. Beyond, only growing dimness, then near-dark.

  Rowan arranged in her mind a diagram of the surrounding streets and selected a straight route toward a wide intersection, which she and Bel had both passed many times in the last two days and knew to be surrounded only by business and warehouses. At this late hour, all would be shut.

  The steerswoman breathed the night air, looked up to the Western Guidestar, just above the rooftops, and walked out into the night.

  6

  At the intersection Rowan turned right, then flattened herself against a stone warehouse wall and waited, listening.

  Distant laughter from the direction of the Dolphin. Somewhere far to Rowan’s right, the clop of horse hooves. A small clack from high up—a cat on loose roof tiles, perhaps.

  Nothing else.

  The steerswoman unclasped her cloak, shrugged it to the ground, drew her sword. With her other hand she tested the heft and balance of her cane.

  Above, between the rooftops, stars: the Hunter, the Hound, and the Western Guidestar. Rowan wondered who among the wizards might now be watching through that high eye.

  She waited.

  Minutes later, she was still waiting.

  More minutes later, footsteps. But Rowan recognized them, and when Bel emerged from the street, the steerswoman waved her over. The Outskirter tucked herself beside Rowan, leaned close. “No one.”

  Rowan whispered back: “What?”

  “No one’s interested at all. The man and the woman are still ignoring each other. The beggar looks asleep.”

  Rowan digested this information, conf
used. “Can we have been completely wrong?”

  Bel was definite. “No. The man and the woman are working together. I saw them speaking to each other when they thought no one was looking. The beggar . . . he just seems to be underfoot too often. And whenever I see him, either the man or the woman seems to be nearby.”

  The steerswoman and the Outskirter both waited, listening. Under the roof eave above, a flutter and scrabble as some bird adjusted its perch. The horse hooves were somewhat nearer, and the creak of a cart wheel could be heard.

  Nothing else.

  Bel made a quiet noise of amusement; with her face so close, Rowan could feel the huff of her breath. “Maybe they think you’ve just gone to the outhouse, and they’re all waiting for you to come back.”

  “Why would I take my cloak to visit the outhouse, on a fine night like this?”

  They listened some more: still nothing. “Then,” Bel said, “they’re lazy. They’re comfortable, they’re enjoying their ale, and they don’t want to stir. They think they’ll catch up with you in the morning.”

  “That beggar can’t possibly be comfortable.”

  “Then they know it’s a trap.”

  Rowan shut her eyes and listened even more intently. She stepped slightly away from the wall, clearing a path for the sound from up the street.

  Steps, distant, approaching.

  Rowan moved quickly back, tapped Bel on the arm, and indicated the opposite corner. The Outskirter slipped past Rowan, peered around the edge of the building, then jogged across the intersection and took her post.

  The steps paused at the point where the light from the Dolphin’s lamps grew dim; then began again, now accompanied by a faint scratch-and-tap.

  The Outskirter and the steerswoman waited.

  The steps continued, slowly—and then there were more, two more sets, and they were running.

  Rowan heard a startled cry; something clattered to the ground. Feet scuffled on cobbles. A series of thumps; a choked sound of anger; the flutter of cloth.

  Rowan stood listening, utterly confused, so completely so that she said out loud, “What?” as if Bel were beside her and able to reply. But Bel was invisible, at her post in the dark at the opposite corner.

  The sounds continued; sounds of a struggle, which now seemed to include blows. Rowan peered around the corner but saw only a vague knot of twisting shadows halfway up the street.

  Then someone grunted, hard, and the sounds became quieter. “There, like that,” a woman’s voice said; “No, wait—” a man replied, and the struggle suddenly renewed, wilder, more desperate.

  Rowan found that she had stepped completely away from the corner and now stood in the center of the street, watching. Only two followers, after all? she speculated; and . . . one simple confidence artist—

  Who happened to get in the way.

  And from up the street: the unmistakable hiss of a sword being drawn.

  Aghast, Rowan said, “No—” Then she ran, toward the fight, calling to Bel, “Come on!”

  Then Bel was beside her, and then she was not: the Outskirter swiftly outpaced Rowan. A moment later there came a clash of swords, and a silver flicker in the starlight. Beyond, the other two figures were a tangle of shadows.

  The ringing became rhythmic; Bel had one attacker occupied. Rowan reached them, passed them by, reached the others, rounded on them, struck overhand, not with her sword but with her cane.

  Two male voices cried out in pain; one figure fell sprawling, then scrambling away. The other man acquired a small silver flash: a knife.

  Rowan swung her sword at a point just behind it, connected. A hiss of pain; but the flash arced up and over, came at her from the other hand. She back-stepped, swung at the flash; it dipped, came again from below. She slashed, down, and across. A weird, quiet wail, and the clatter of metal falling on stone. Rowan stepped back.

  Wet noises; the smell of blood, and offal. The figure collapsed. And because, by the signs, the wound could not be survived, Rowan quickly finished the man.

  Ringing sounds behind her; she turned. Bel was still engaged, her opponent’s back to Rowan. Rowan moved to assist.

  But the beggar had regained his feet; he was in Rowan’s way; he made some movement with his arms, she could not see what. Then he took three steps forward, slapped Bel’s opponent on the back, and, stepping away quickly, cried out: “Bel, get back!”

  A soft thump, a hiss, a sudden wild flare of brilliant white light. The woman’s shadow was huge, flailing against the stone walls. The white light on her back was small, sharp, almost too intense to look at. Rowan squinted in pain, half-shielded her eyes with her arm, backed away.

  The woman dropped her sword, convulsed, fell, taking the light to the ground with her. She thrashed, once, and was still.

  The hiss continued. Other than this, only silence.

  The beggar was beside Rowan, breathing hard. He turned to her, looked at her once, his eyes uncovered now, and wide. He seemed as horrified as Rowan felt. Then he turned back and watched as the white light slowly dimmed to blue.

  Beyond the fallen woman Bel stood frozen, her face pale, her dark eyes huge, her sword, loose in her hand, reflecting blue light. Then blue jumped as her grip tightened; she closed her mouth, made a strangled sound of fury. She leapt over and past the corpse and came on the attack, her sword ready for a backhand slash—

  Rowan interposed herself. “Bel, no!”

  Another sound from Bel, a choked sound of pure hatred. And because it was the only way to stop her sword, Rowan raised her own, met Bel’s stroke, and hoped that sheer surprise would halt the Outskirter’s attack.

  It did: Bel took a step back, her guard completely dropped. She let out one shriek: “Rowan!” Then, quieter, between clenched teeth: “He’s a wizard!” She made to attack again.

  From behind Rowan: “No, Bel, please—”

  Rowan flung out both arms, protectively. “Bel—wait!” The blue light hissed on, down to dimness, down to darkness.

  But Rowan had seen, clearly, in the white light of magic: the eyes, the unmistakable wide, copper gaze—

  “Bel,” Rowan said. The Outskirter was breathing heavily in the dark, deep gasps. “Bel. . . it’s Willam.”

  7

  In the wake of the white light, Rowan’s vision was a complexity of overlapping afterimages. She could see nothing, nothing. She dropped her cane, reached her left hand behind her, found the rags of Willam’s sleeve. His arm turned under her hand; his fingers gripped hers.

  From somewhere before her, Bel’s voice came. “. . . Willam?”

  Willam drew a breath, released it. “You know,” he said in a shaky voice, “whenever we’re all together, it seems like one of you has to stop the other from killing me. I really wish we could get that sorted out.” His voice was different from their last meeting: a man’s voice now, deep.

  A weak sound of amazement from Bel. “Willam?” She started coming forward. “Curse it, I can’t see a thing!”

  “It’ll pass,” Willam said. “If your sword is up, please lower it. I’d hate to lose any more fingers, groping for you.”

  Then Bel laughed out loud. “Will!” They found each other in the dark; but Bel gagged and stepped back again. “What a stink! When did you last bathe?”

  “I think it was Wulfshaven. It’s part of my disguise. I can’t believe you’re both here—what are you doing in Donner?” He seemed more than surprised: he was urgent, distressed.

  “The same thing we’re always doing,” Bel told him. “Rowan is finding things out, and I’m making sure she doesn’t get killed for it. But what are you doing here? And why are you in disguise ? And who were those two trying to catch you?”

  Rowan put a hand on Bel’s arm. “Quiet a moment.” They silenced, startled. Rowan listened.

  A man’s voice in the distance, another’s replying. A pause, then both voices in conversation, approaching.

  Rowan leaned in to whisper. “Anyone awake can’t have missed that lig
ht. We shouldn’t be found in the company of corpses. And the corpses shouldn’t be found at all.”

  “They’re too heavy to carry far fast,” Bel pointed out.

  Rowan looked about, blinking past the dwindling ghosts of Willam’s magic fire. “There.” She crossed the street, tested a double gate; it was bolted. “There are stables here.”

  They used the dead man’s knife to jimmy the bolt, and dragged the corpses inside, Willam sacrificing a layer of his rags to sop up the worst of the blood on the cobbles, and to wrap around the man’s slashed abdomen. Inside, they waited with their backs to the closed gate, breathing shallowly, in the deep warm horse-scented darkness.

  The voices paused outside near the scene of the struggle. Shifting light shone from the cracks in the gate: a lamp. One man exclaimed: he had discovered the woman’s sword. Quiet discussion as the two men examined it, apparently pleased with their good fortune. Eventually, they departed.

  They had called no alarm. Rowan released a pent breath.

  “We could use a lamp ourselves,” Bel said.

  “Wait a moment. There must be one about.”

  Rowan moved cautiously, navigating by feel, sound, and scent. Horses greeted her with snorts and curious whickers. She passed them by, and eventually found the tack room. As she had hoped, a tin lamp was hung just inside the door, but Rowan could find no tinderbox or flint. She almost left the lamp behind, but thought twice.

  Back at the gate, she located her friends, placed the lamp in Willam’s hands. “Can you light this?”

  “Yes.” He set it on the ground, scrabbled in the dirt a moment, then rose and seemed to be fumbling about his clothing. Whatever it was that he sought, he found; then he stooped down to the lamp again and, unmistakable by the sound, spat.

  Between his fingers, a little twist of straw flared with a tiny white light, then immediately settled into natural yellow flame. This Willam used to light the lamp.

  Watching, Rowan said: “So . . . it seems you spit fire, now.”